I firmly believe that years from now when discussion turns to the greatest single horror performances by an actress, Naomi Scott in Smile 2 will be top of that list. She puts in career-best work in Parker Finn’s sequel, the rare follow-up that surpasses the original in every way. Smile (review here) was a smash hit but it was mostly a really cool marketing campaign used to bolster a movie that borrowed liberally from It Follows and The Grudge. But Smile 2 is a complete movie; a full-meal horror with bigger stakes, much better scares, and an epic turn by Scott that should have us reexamining why horror actresses don’t get any love during awards season. If we seriously considered Mia Goth for the work she’s done over the last couple of years, then it’s time to put Scott’s name in the hat, too.
Finn goes the extra-violent mile with Smile 2, and it starts right from the very beginning with a frantic, gruesome reintroduction featuring Kyle Gallner’s Joel. He managed to survive the curse, but now is trying to use it to his advantage and pass it along to horrible people who deserve it. It’s a misguided notion that leads him into the crosshairs of drug dealers, and ultimately a crazy chase and shootout sequence that ends unexpectedly. This opening is Finn’s opening salvo; a full-blow action setpiece that establishes the larger canvas he’ll be operating from for the rest of the movie.
But the story picks up with Scott’s celebrity pop star, Skye Riley. With a global tour set to pop off, Skye is already being driven to the edge. A recovering drug addict attempting a career comeback after a traumatic accident, the drop dead last thing she needs is to be infected by the Smile curse. It latches on to her during a moment of weakness, something she experiences quite often as someone trying to move past her personal demons. Making things even crazier is Skye’s doting, opportunistic mother (Rosemarie DeWitt), a suspiciously perky assistant, and loads of demands from the record label and adoring fans.
It becomes clear right away that Finn has decided to up the gore factor this time around. Smile was pretty damn brutal, but Smile 2 takes it to the next level with some shit that probably could’ve passed the Terrifier approval test, including one involving an erratic drug dealer (Lukas Gage) and a set of weights. I’m pretty immune to jump scares, but I’m good at sensing when they work on others in the audience, and there were multiple that had people leaping out of their seats. For me, the skin-crawly stuff was what Skye would do to harm herself, like yanking out clumps of hair, an emotional response to the pressure she was under.
The demonic presence, virus, spirit, whatever you want to call it, plays on the weakness of its host. Skye’s got a lot of darkness in her past, and as she’s prone to lashing out irrationally and acting like a spoiled celeb, it becomes hard to tell if it’s truly the entity at work. Scott fearlessly captures Skye’s complexity on an emotional and physical level. Watch how she aggressively chugs bottles of water with the same vigor she used to snort coke. Watch her move from grueling dance rehearsals to poised modeling shoots to cheerful meet-ups with fans. All of it begins to break Skye down, and it doesn’t help that there are people out there with a dangerous attraction to celebrity. Not all of the threats are of a supernatural nature. It’s no wonder that Skye becomes frantic at the sight of her own shadow.
Finn would do well to continue expanding this grisly universe in a way that obscures the rules established in the first movie. Smile 2 is best the more it gets away from them, and focuses on the psychological frailty of the host. Finn’s growth as a filmmaker shows, and it makes what he’ll do next for a likely threequel even more exciting. For Scott, she’s got to be considered one of the great Scream Queens after this, and if it leads to more opportunities in this genre that’ll be something else we can smile about.
Smile 2 opens in theaters on October 18th.
